To a large extent, the retirement options available to a worker are accumulated throughout his years of employment. Therefore, retirement cannot be considered a homogeneous status. Instead, the quality of retirement for any given worker is a function of personal characteristics, retirement-relevant characteristics of his career and/or current job, and the openness of the labor market. An initial step to shaping policy that can improve the quality of life for older workers who are either in or out of the labor force is the identification of dimensions of difference in the retirement process itself. Using a labor supply approach to retirement, this study proposes to analyze data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Older Men to assess occupation and industry differences in retirement patterns among older workers. Labor supply models will be estimated for 1969, 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1976 by means of a generalized version of Tobit analysis. Primary emphasis will be on occupation and industry differences in the impact of health, pension coverage, compulsory retirement, unemployment experience and both regional and industry-specific unemployment rates. The mid-point of the time-span addressed by this study references a year in which important legislative changes were made in the Social Security system. Because of the re-structuring of Social Security benefits in 1972, the occupational-specific retirement patterns may display important changes during this period.